How hard is the water in McLennan County, TX?
8.8 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in McLennan County, TX is 151 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 8.8 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 277 samples at 7 sites between 1997 and 2016, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 5.1 and 9.5 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 8.8 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below. Because McLennan County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 0.7 to 11.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in McLennan County was 12.1 mg/L and the hardest 187.5 mg/L, a 15-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 9.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 5.1 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 1.1 gpg, rivers and lakes 9 gpg
2 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 19.6 mg/L. 275 surface samples from 5 sites put it at 154 mg/L. In McLennan County the rivers and lakes come out 7.9 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 192 lb of salt a year (5 bags of 40 lb, about $35), and roughly 2,346 gallons of regeneration water. Installed, most units run $1,000 to $4,500; spread over 15 years with salt, that is about $135 a year.
Sizing at 8.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 528 | 24,000 | 64 lb |
| 2 | 1,056 | 24,000 | 128 lb |
| 4 | 2,112 | 24,000 | 257 lb |
| 6 | 3,168 | 24,000 | 385 lb |
McLennan County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, McLennan County is number 143 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 46% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to McLennan County: Milam County (8.8), El Paso County (8.6), Matagorda County (9).